Lunch break at Shiroyama Gakuin Middle School.
【N-noona... Ai noona.】
With her head resting against her brother’s shoulder, Ruby was watching a fanservice video of her father that a fan had uploaded to their YouTube channel when—
"Kyaaaah!!!!!!!!!"
She slapped the hallway wall with her palm, over and over, trying to calm the pounding in her chest.
That was way too powerful!
That kind of fanservice is dangerous, Papa!!
Aqua seemed to feel the same way. Just like the mother on the screen, he couldn’t get a word out and only swallowed a low groan.
Watching such sweet moments between their father and mother, who were both much younger than the parents of other first-year middle schoolers around them...
...
Ah.
Thank you deeply for letting me be born as the child of my favorite and second favorite.
God, Buddha, anyone, whatever. Anyway, the start was garbage, but thanks to that I got to meet Ruby too, so I’m very satisfied.
When they were little, the twins had hated their father to death for stealing away their favorite person, but now Aqua and Ruby were completely smitten with him, enough to rank him right after their favorite mother.
"Waaah— we should’ve gone that dayyyy! Mama and Papa’s fan signingggg~!!!"
"C-calm down."
"...!"
Then an incredible idea suddenly flashed through Ruby’s head.
It was the perfect chance to soothe the lifelong regret of missing the fan signing, and to play a prank that would fluster her beloved brother!
"Heehee—"
Ruby, wearing a devilish little smile just like her mother’s, twirled a strand of her golden hair around her finger and looked up at him.
"Big brother...♥ Ruby has a favor to ask. Will you definitely do it for me?"
"A favor...?"
"Mhm!"
He immediately sensed something off, inheriting his father’s sharp intuition, but he couldn’t refuse when his precious little sister looked at him with such pitiful eyes. Aqua tidied her long blond hair and asked, "What kind of favor?"
"Umm~ well~ there’s this~ thing~? Yeah~"
"What is it that you’re dragging it out like that...?"
He had a bad feeling, as if his sister’s star-bright eyes were flashing with mischief.
But it was already too late to back out!
Seeing her brother’s uneasy expression, Ruby decided that was enough. She twitched her brows and smiled in a sly, emoji-like way.
"Just like Papa called Mama... could you call Ruby ‘noona’ just once too?"
"........"
Aqua fell silent, momentarily at a loss for words.
His mouth hung open, making it obvious at a glance how shocked he was.
There had already been nearly twenty years between them in their past life, and even in this life, though they were twins, Aqua’s mental age was already...
No, wait! More importantly, ‘noona’?!
She was asking him to call Ruby ‘noona’!
Just imagining it made his face burn and his hands curl in embarrassment, so Aqua raised a hand and lightly covered his reddening face.
"I-I know you’re asking, but... th-this is still..."
"Hm? You can’t...? Sniff..."
But then he saw his little sister looking so dejected, like a baby rabbit, and his sympathy came flooding back.
Rubbing his hot face once, Aqua let out a small sigh.
Then, swallowing hard with reluctance, he forced his lips apart and said, "A-alright. Fuh... N-..."
"Huh?!"
Ruby’s rabbit eyes went wide as she clasped both hands together and stared at him.
With his blue eyes trembling, Aqua whispered quietly, just like his father had in the video earlier, his face red with embarrassment.
"N-no... Ruby, noona..."
"..."
Boom!
At the sound of something bursting, all of Ruby’s classmates turned their heads toward the hallway.
There they saw—
"R-Ruby? Snap out of it?! Ruby!"
"...Hee..."
Ruby standing dazed in the hall, her face bright red as if it might explode, completely out of her mind.
And Aqua, looking startled, shaking his sister by the shoulders to check on her.
They didn’t really know what had happened, but—
“So pretty.”
“Amazing.”
“Holy crap, I need to take a picture.”
“They’re gorgeous!”
The classmates watched the lovely twin siblings’ intimate little moment with sparkling eyes.
-
At the same time, Shiroyama Gakuin Elementary Division.
Amane, who had started attending the school her twin brother and sister had only gone to until a few months ago, found the new atmosphere very refreshing compared to kindergarten.
She was in the same class as a friend from kindergarten, and also with new classmates she had never met before, but for Amane, elementary school life was one new experience after another—a playground of discoveries.
"Amane!"
"Hm?"
"Miura-kun gave me this and said to give it to you. Hehe— looks like Miura-kun really likes Amane."
"Oh? Nakamawa-kun gave me this candy too and told me to bring it to Amane."
"Huh? I-I also... this... huh?"
Amane’s three friends widened their eyes and looked at one another.
Then they all turned to Amane at once.
"..."
Long, glossy dark-purple hair that resembled her mother’s, and clear blue eyes like her father’s.
Unlike how she looked on TV, Amane rarely smiled at her friends and usually buried herself in reading with her usual indifferent expression.
She had no interest at all in the fact that these were gifts from boys who liked her. She held out a hand to her friends and said, "If you’re not going to eat them, give them to me."
"..."
They were from boys who gave them to you in the first place!
The three friends giggled as they placed the chocolate, candy, and snacks into Amane’s hands.
Even after lunch, if she kept reading, she’d get hungry again in no time.
Without even checking what kind of candy it was, Amane popped it into her mouth without taking her eyes off the book, then slightly furrowed her brows at the cooling, minty sensation in her mouth.
"Ew— mint candy? And you’re only in first grade?"
"..."
You’re in first grade too, you know?!
The three friends silently offered some consolation to Miura-kun, who had handed over the mint candy.
-
Mid-July.
It was the time when the three siblings’ summer vacation was drawing near, and under normal circumstances it should have been very hot—but
thanks to the unusual cool summer, with temperatures not rising much, the discomfort level was somewhat lower than usual.
Still, summer was summer. For Kaoru, who had regained his past-life memories and now endured Tokyo’s notoriously humid summers every year—
"Haa..."
Paris summers had hot sunlight, but the shade was cool. And since it was at a latitude similar to Moscow, the summer itself was cooler than Tokyo’s to begin with.
After finishing filming the drama in which he starred alongside Arakaki Satomi, who had become an easygoing coworker of sorts...
he went drinking with the lead cast and the director at an izakaya in Shibuya.
Normally, as an introvert, Kaoru would have planned to drink quickly and head home to rest.
But—
【Kaoru~! Aren’t you going to come to a second round with this big sister, and this pretty and adorable big sister too? Hm?】
【Kaoru-kun! Hm? Shouldn’t we have a serious late-night meeting about where our work is headed next?! Come on, let’s go for round two! I know a great place!】
【Senpai!!! Don’t hold back! Oh, by the way, I worked on a project with Ai before, so I still have her number. I’ll call her for you, so why don’t you ask her permission?!】
Like the drinkers they were, whose switches flipped the moment alcohol went in, they tried their hardest to keep him from leaving.
But Kaoru coolly paid the entire bill and slipped out.
The reason was simple.
The famous bakery nearby closed at 10 p.m.!
"..."
To avoid being recognized, Kaoru put on a black cap and thick-rimmed glasses, then took out his smartphone and read the message Ruby had sent.
【 Papa♥ Ruby wants strawberry fresh cream cake please! Love you, Papa★ б（＞ε＜）∂ 】
Even the way she sent messages was just like her mother. With a pleased fatherly smile, Kaoru looked at the text and then tucked his phone into his pocket, quickening his pace.
This year was a milestone for the three siblings: their first year entering middle school and elementary school, respectively.
Since his children had safely and healthily finished their first semester and reached summer vacation, he had decided to hold a small celebration tomorrow evening as a father’s way of congratulating them.
He’d left the car behind because of the drinking, so he just needed to pick up the reserved cake and call a taxi from the bakery.
Kaoru lowered his head slightly so no one would recognize him, changed the way he walked, and moved with a slight stoop.
As he headed toward the bakery not far away—
"Sniffle... sob... sniffle..."
Suddenly, he heard a woman sniffing somewhere nearby, and Kaoru quickly turned toward the sound.
When he looked, he saw a young girl wiping away tears while staring at a large screen.
Kaoru instantly analyzed and memorized every physical detail of the woman in his head.
Given her relatively youthful face and her height, which seemed below average, he guessed she was a high school girl, but he couldn’t be sure.
She was wearing makeup and dressed like a college student, but with his excellent eyesight Kaoru caught the fact that her pupils were dilated and wet with tears, as if she had been drinking. He strode toward her.
< Have you heard of the "Toyoko Kids"? Runaway teenagers trapped in legal gray zones >
< Drugs and prostitution too... illegal brokers arrested for trafficking runaway girls in their teens >
As the father of three children, and especially of two daughters—
the articles he had read before flashed through Kaoru’s mind, and he decided to prioritize the possibility that the girl might be caught up in a crime.
The girl had been staring at the screen showing a music video by an idol group, then lowered her head briefly to wipe her tears.
Kaoru, his blue eyes gleaming, took out the small handkerchief he always kept in his back pocket.
As he came closer, he could smell alcohol on her just as he’d expected, but he kept it from showing and spoke as naturally as he could.
"Are you alright?"
"...Eh?"
Startled by the man suddenly offering her a handkerchief, the girl looked up—
"Eh?!"
Even with the cap and glasses disguising him, this was a face and voice no Japanese person could possibly fail to recognize. The unbelievable sight of that person suddenly appearing before her left the girl frozen stiff, like she had seen a ghost.
"A prank...?"
Trying to escape reality, the girl muttered something odd in a dazed, strange voice, and Kaoru, who had absolutely not expected such a bizarre reaction, frowned in confusion and asked back, "Pardon?"
"N-no, it’s nothing! Please be careful on your way?!"
"Wait—"
As the girl hurriedly turned to run, Kaoru quickly reached out to stop her.
But the girl’s body was even faster.
Thud!
"Gya?!"
The girl’s plan to bolt the moment she turned around came to nothing when she slammed her forehead into the tree planted right behind her.
The impact made her vision go black, stars burst before her eyes, and she nearly lost her balance and fell backward—but—
"!"
Kaoru caught her by the shoulder, and thankfully, she avoided the disaster of cracking her skull open on the back of her head.
Only...
"..."
"...Heh?"
Along with the throbbing, burning pain in her forehead came a tidal wave of unbearable embarrassment.
Realizing she had just made a fool of herself in front of the most famous actor of the age, the girl ended up grinning stupidly.
With a deep, bitter regret that it would have been better if she had just smashed her head and passed out instead.
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